Our Rating: Pending

Status: Not In MTC’s Most Recommended List

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Company Information and Credibility

Company Size:

XE.com, which was established in 1993 in Ontario, Canada, is one of the Internet’s first currency exchange rate providers. Nowadays, there are hundreds of websites offering up-to-date information (we also have our own foreign currency rates section), but back when XE was established, there were none.

Between 1993 and 2002, together with the popularization of the Internet, XE.com became a synonym for everything currency related. It created a variety of tools, graphs, and APIs, and many companies were happy to pay a monthly retainer to gain access to them.

In 2002 XE started XE Trade, an online international money transfer service. While it was still selling currency data packages to companies, this has supposedly become the company’s main revenue stream. Since 2002, XE Trade Money Transfers has processed more than $10 billion in global payments and has served thousands of businesses and individuals.

The company now has 20-30 employees in Canada, and transfers unknown sums of money each year (We assume it is one of the bigger players in the field, so anywhere between several billions of dollars to tens of billions annually).

XE.com, by itself, as far as we could tell looking into FinCEN’s and the FCA’s registrar records, is not regulated to conduct any money transfer activity. They even state on their website’s Money Transfer section (under “Secure and Reliable”) that “… Where required, our provider has regulatory approval in every country…”. That definitely indicates that they work with approved and authorised payment providers (currently, HiFX, as you’ll see below), but does not say anything about their own regulation.

Prior to using HiFX as their payment providers (as part of their acquisition by Euronet Worldwide), XE worked with Western Union. which is also, of course, fully regulated, being the largest non-bank money transmitter in the world.

XE’s Announcement on Moving to HiFX in 2016:

Conclusion:

XE.com is well-established and appears to be trustworthy considering how long it has been operating. It is extremely well-known as the world’s currency authority (Its motto is “the world’s favourite currency site”).

On the other hand, XE serves as merely a gateway to another company. They do not provide the service themselves. That means that being an XE client you rely on XE.com’s good judgement in using the best currency transfer company.

Client Feedback

Research:

There are 50+ reviews of XE.com’s XE Trade on Review Centre, 47 more on Site Jabber, and about 10 complaints on ComplaintsBoard.com. There are 553 TrustPilot reviews which are 93% positive.

Considering how well known XE.com is, we can only wonder why there aren’t more reviews. For the sake of comparison, companies like World First has more than 4,000 verified reviews on Feefo.

The company deteriorated over time and rates have been non-competitive before negotiation

Money that has been sent was not received within 14 days

Some trades did not go through, yet money was still charged (!)

Clients are not forearded to the managers if they want to speak to a higher authority

Clients receive less money than they anticipated

Client support is outsourced and non-professional

At times, rates are worse than banks

Conclusion:

More than 20% of the XE reviews we have discovered online are negative, detailing a number of reasons for their poor rating: non-responsive staff, poor rates, and payment not going through as smoothly as expected.

The 79% of positive XeTrade reviews we have found online provide the complete opposite notion. The positive reviewers are extremely satisfied with the service they have receive, the rates, and every other aspect.

There are additional reviews on the Comments section of this review by non-verified clients who provided feedback in regards to the service they have received. Most of those are negative, and some are positive.

Exchange Rates & Fees

Fees: XE proudly states they do not charge any fixed fees per transfer. Prior to 2017, this information was not mentioned on XE.com, so the firm has perhaps changed its fee structure or just chose to apt for more transparency than before.

Exchange rates: The exchange rates in which XE.com uses is not visible on the website. You have to register and sign into the online system, or speak to a phone representative, to get the current rates. These rates depends on the currencies and the volume of trading.

If we were to look into the 100+ XE reviews we that were collated on our website, we can see mixed opinions about the exchange rates used by XE. The most recent user comment from Jan 17, 2018, mentions a 1% margin “below the bank rate” (we suppose that’s the interbank rate that reader is referring to). That is somewhat average for the industry, really depends on the volumes and currencies.

Limits: Not specified on the website.

XE Business Model and Ownership:

Euronet Worldwide Inc. (Nasdaq: EEFT) is a large money transfer company worth US$4 billion by market capitalisation and handling over $77 billion in cash per year across 155 countries. Euronet acquired XE.com in a cash and shares deal worth around $100 million. The acquisition is this year being followed up by XE.com switching its payment provider from Western Union to HiFX.

HiFX is a global provider of foreign exchange and already a part of the Euronet group of companies. The Euronet takeover has allowed XE.com’s online brand to be matched with HiFX’s reputation and market position.

XE earns revenue from two services tied to currency exchange rates: currency data and international payments. XE earns subscription-based fees for delivering global currency exchange rate data through its proprietary currency data API and earns transaction-based revenue from XE Trade Money Transfers, its online international payments service made available to businesses and consumers through an outsourced service contract.

Conclusion:

We could not determine whether XE rates are better than their competitors, on par, or worse, due to mixed client opinions.

Global Reach & Service

Research:

Dedicated Dealer: Yes (HiFX dealer).

Offices: Canada.

Ways to Approach: Telephone, online and via email.

Translations: No.

Accepts Clients: Worldwide.

Currencies Handled: 40+.

Client Reviews: Less than 30% positive.

Offices: Canada only, as far as we could understand.

Conclusion:

XE.com accepts clients internatoinally with no limitations but their main aim are clients from North America, Australia-NZ, the EU, and the UK. There are different sections on the Money Transfer section on XE.com devoted to people from these different locales but the content is highly similar between these different sections.

From the information we have gathered on the website and on Wikipedia, it seems like the company’s headquarters are in Canada with only 2 Canadian offices. For the sake of comparison, its highly-rated competitor World First boasts offices in all 5 continents, and more than 10 functioning offices in total.

Additional Functionalities

XE.com is the best online currency exchange calculator, and has everything relating to this aspect – currency pairings history, interesting statistics, currency exchange apps, API’s, etc. All of the aforementioned services are great but are outside the realm of international money transfers.

In international money transfers, however, XE offers the following: options (including Forwards), regular payments, online trading system and of course spot transactions. We could not find any additional information on the type of options offered by XE and we are not sure whether they are offered only for corporate clients, or private clients can use them too.

Conclusion:

XE Trade online system is similar in function to Transferwise and Currencyfair. You can use the online system to move money from point A to point B with no trouble.

Regarding other more complicated functions – it’s hard to say. There isn’t enough information about them on the website, and there are few client reviews out on the market discussing it.

XE Review: Bottom Line

When it comes to XE.com money transfer services (or XETrade) we do not have a definite bottom line. Some of the information we needed to formulate an opinion is missing. This review includes an objective overview of the data were were able to collect, and you are welcomed to read through it to form your own opinion of the company and its services.

We will strive to fill in the gaps in the coming months so we are able to give XE a definite rating, but for the time being we have revoked their rating to “Pending“.

If you are keen to use a money transfer company that has been verified and approved by us, you can use the button below to discover the top recommended companies on our website.

I send money from the US to the Euro Zone every so often to purchase musical instruments. I’ve never had a problem with fx.com. The rates have almost always been the same as the bid, and very close to the actual exchange rate. Once there was an additional small charge, I think from a bank.

I’ve never had a problem with support; on the contrary, the support has always been very quick and helpful.

Transfers take a few days or a week. My experience is that security and verification is taken very seriously.

I used xe for 2x transactions, and won’t be anymore. I am transferring savings from Australia for a house deposit in Ireland. I’m not in a huge rush on this, so xe’s limit trades looked great, and I didn’t look much further after that. In August I transferred$10,000. The wire and EFT options had fees, so I chose the draft option. I assumed the cheque arriving would be local, and I had checked the rates with my bank re cheque deposits. All the while assuming the cheque would come from a UK or Eu bank. It came from bank of… Read more »

Very funny we have been told in 4 days benificiary will receive funds in Pakistan. It is our contractor invoice amount he has to pay his employees.but today is 5th day. And customer service audacity is praiseworthy saying same line as parrot – pls check with your bank and when we asked MT 103 or any other code which we can be given to our bank as international payment reference number, we got reply we will check with our bank and then no reply. how come a money transfer service does not have any substantial proof to produce apart from… Read more »

Avoid them , I’m a British citizen originally from Kurdistan north Iraq , I was on holiday in Kurdistan and I was going to turkey from Iraq , I’ve transferred some money from my pounds account to my USD Citibank account. They ask me to send them a bank statement and price of income so I did , I’m a self employed, they have hold my money they keep playing with me , I cancelled it but they don’t want to return my money they keep telling me we can’t give you a time when we have an update we… Read more »

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1 year ago

M Walji

Disgusting and very unprofessional . Website shows a rate and they quickly take your money then they start their nonsense with demanding more and more documents. Eventually they start fibbing you off a week later still no transfer and still no refund. Then they demand a large deduction of fees if you cancel. Damned if you cancel and damned if you dont because they will not transfer. Its a scam organisation FCA should close them down i still have not had my refund or my transfer and its over a week. All calls are simply given a standard reply someone… Read more »

I wish i had seen this before starting this transaction. I asked to transfer £800 into a family member’s account in Ghana for arrangements for my mum’s funeral celebrations. I got an email saying i need to send some documents to prove who i am and where the funds were coming from. I have done that and then now they come back to me saying because i used the business account which i am the director they cannot go on with the transaction. I then asked the guy on the phone to cancell the transaction and send my money back… Read more »

I tryed to send some money using this site 10 days ago, and the transfer not arrived yet.
They are keep saying that they have send the money, and they keep doing investiogation with their bank.

I`m not sure if I will ever get my money back.

This is just a scam.

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1 year ago

Mia Anderson

Today I completed by 4th dealing with XE, paying in Euro and sending Canadian dollars to my son who is studying in Ontario. First deal 16k CAD; 2nd 7.1k CAD; 3rd and fourth 2.2k CAD. Each time without a hitch. Their transfers have always completed on the date that XE has quoted. No additional fees. Better exchange rate than my bank or OFX. Initially I had to resend identification proof, as what I had originally sent was insufficient but once that was established there were no further issues. I hope I continue to have such positive experience with XE for… Read more »

Even though the web is set up to completely trash XE Money Transfers.., I used them for the first time recently and had absolutely NO issues. It was a flawless transaction. They charged be no fees.., just 3 beeps on my end.., so an all out cost of about $9 US. Compared to other sites.., and ESPECIALLY compared to a FLIPPIN BANK.., who get you with ludicrous upfront costs of up to $40.., then they ding the hell out of you on the conversion and take another 6 points. NO FLIPPIN WAY!! It was easy.., and fast.. took less than… Read more »

I’m a new customer with XE and didn’t quite read all the documentation ahead of time and missed that they are now a UK based company. A consequence of that (or the patriot act?) is, that EU citicens need to transfer their funds to a bank in the UK (which I only realized after I initiated the first transaction). This is inconvenient for me, as I wanted to transfer funds from the USA. I called them up and we discussed the dilemma and my options and in the end they cancelled the transaction in my behalf at no cost for… Read more »

I’ve been using Xe for 5 years now. I’ve got winter home in Arizona. It did seem like there was a bit of a hiccup when they switched over a year ago. I had to reconfirm my ID. But I haven’t had any problems in the last six months. Always get a good deal. It’s usually, below 1% the bank’s rate.

xe.com agreed to convert USD6024.75 to CAD7500 for me. They took the USD6024.75 out of my USD bank account, and never deposited the CAD7500 to my CAD bank account. Instead they sent me an email saying that they decided to cancel the transaction and close my account. When I asked them to send me back the USD6024.75 they took, they told me to contact my bank to get my money back. My bank says I need to tell xe.com to send me my money back. Xe.com is refusing to send me my money back. When I called on the phone… Read more »

I started using them in 2003 , have done about 25 transactions since. I have always been content with the service. I have transferred in both directions from CAD to EUR and vice versa and it never took longer than 2 days to receive the money. The exchange rate was close to fx rate and much better than what my bank was offering and no fees. I will keep using them.

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9 months ago

Rod

I am still waiting for my money to be transferred. My recipient has not received the funds and it is already 6 months gone by – Oct 2017. They are not trustworthy. If Xe read this, please refund my money.
It’s like I’ve been robbed legally.
I’ve called numerous time, to no avail, they always tell me to wait 30 days for an answer. Sounds like a brilliant 419 scam.

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7 months ago

Mike

WORST COMPANY EVER!!! I had set up an account thinking I was all good to go, then all of the sudden they blocked my account, for NO REASON. Their excuse was that “they had some concerns” non of which could be validated. Long story short, I was not able to transfer money and lost on the exchange rate because they could not get their act together. INCOMPETENT TEAM and COMPANY.

I registered with XE in order to compare the costs involved in transferring a gift from my parents. It turns out that what was happening all along is, I authorised a trade, for which now I am charged more than £700. Whilst there were boxes to tick and emails, I do not remember anywhere the warning that this is a live trade. Will never use them again. M

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